


no easy love could ever

by susiecarter



Series: wherever i go [1]
Category: The Great Wall (2017), The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Battle Couple, Breaking Up & Making Up, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Denial of Feelings, Gen, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Season/Series 01, Rescue Missions, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: The footsteps came to a stop. Only one set, Will realized. That was intriguing.He cracked an eye, and by the skin of his teeth contained the wave of sick hot reaction that swept him. "Oh," he said. "It's you."The Mandalorian looked at him, and said nothing.Or probably looked at him, at least. Always hard to be sure, behind that damned helmet.(Or: The Mandalorian is the Mandalorian. Will Garin used to be his partner, in multiple senses of the word. It didn't work out great, last time they saw each other; but this time, things go a little differently.)
Relationships: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/William Garin (Great Wall)
Series: wherever i go [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817875
Comments: 28
Kudos: 117





	no easy love could ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brenda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Brenda! YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELF, you have no one else to blame, and I refuse to apologize for it because the fault is all yours. :D ♥!
> 
> For everybody else: this may or may not make any sense, if read as a Mandalorian/OMC fic; I honestly can't tell, at this point. In Great Wall, Pedro Pascal plays a mercenary who does his best to pretend he has no feelings and heroism means nothing, and also is super married to Matt Damon's character, William Garin—this fic self-indulgently imports William wholesale into the Star Wars universe, because a) I couldn't stop imagining him as one of the Mandalorian's bitter ex-teammates, with some past fuckbuddying on the side, b) when I mentioned it to Brenda, she encouraged me instead of telling me what an awful idea it was, and c) "Will Garin" really isn't that far off, like, "Owen Lars", as plausible Star Wars character names go.
> 
> Anything that's familiar to you was probably sourced off Wookieepedia; anything that isn't, I made up out of thin air. Oops. Title from OneRepublic's "Wherever I Go", because it captured the "hung-up exes" feel I was going for here way too well to pass up. :D

Will heard the footsteps coming, and didn't open his eyes.

Why bother? It was surely only some more of Madari's guard, come to amuse themselves with another go at him.

Difficult, to achieve an attitude of relaxation and casual disinterest, restrained as he was in chains of sparksteel that flashed bright and stung him sharply whenever he moved, and still bleeding sluggishly from the mouth, and from a cut that must be somewhere above one eye. But he persevered, and was rewarded with some semblance of victory: he had slack enough between his wrists and where the chains were bolted to the wall to clasp his hands behind his head, and at the ankle to bend one leg and cross it before the other, tip-toed, and twiddle his heel.

The footsteps came to a stop. Only one set, Will realized. That was intriguing.

He cracked an eye, and by the skin of his teeth contained the wave of sick hot reaction that swept him. "Oh," he said. "It's you."

The Mandalorian looked at him, and said nothing.

Or probably looked at him, at least. Always hard to be sure, behind that damned helmet.

Will bared his teeth in a smile, grimly resigned. In a way, it was no surprise at all. Who else would ever have found him, when he was trapped here, alone and at his lowest, with nothing left to him? Of course it was the Mandalorian.

(And yet in a way it was the greatest surprise of all, for he had—

He hadn't thought he'd ever see the Mandalorian again. And he'd known he should be grateful for that, but he hadn't been. All the tricks at his disposal, and he'd never been able to convince himself of that, though it should have been the simplest thing in the galaxy.)

"What are you doing here?" Will said.

The Mandalorian was quiet, for almost long enough that Will thought perhaps he wouldn't answer. "I could ask you the same thing," he said at last, low and even.

"You could," Will agreed, and smiled wider. "I don't look to you like I'm enjoying myself?"

"You look like someone hit you in the face, Garin," the Mandalorian said. "A lot."

Will tilted his head. "Sorry someone else got around to it first? Is that it?"

He spoke too fast, too harshly, and he knew it. He spoke like a man who had been hurt; and that was what he was, but he hadn't wanted to _sound_ like it, not in front of the Mandalorian. He bit his lip, sucked at one of the splits in it and tasted blood, and waited. Best case: the Mandalorian left him afresh, when he'd only just about finished scarring over from last time. Worst case: the Mandalorian took him up on the invitation. He had better armor, now, beskar all the way to the gauntlets. A punch from that hand would hit hard.

But Will would survive it, if he had to. You could survive almost anything, if you tried.

"I could use your help," the Mandalorian said.

Will blinked blood out of one eye. He didn't want anything to get in the way of his incredulous stare. "Excuse me?"

"I could use your help," the Mandalorian repeated, level—always so fucking level, through that damn vocoder of his. "Madari took something from me. I'm here to get it back."

"What?" Will said blankly. "What the hell did she take that could possibly be worth storming this place alone?"

Because there had been only one set of footsteps, no one else had come—but the Mandalorian was no thief. He shot people until there weren't any of them left in his way; _then_ he took what he wanted, if he was going to. There were a lot of words Will would have been able to use to describe him, if prompted, and only about half of them were obscenities. But nowhere among them was "subtle". Or "sneaky".

"A child," the Mandalorian said, after a moment. "She took a child from me."

Will drew a breath, long and slow, deliberate, and let it out again, and ignored the strange tight ache in his chest.

He was in pain, he was exhausted; he'd long since lost track of time, had no idea how long he'd been there. But he wasn't dull enough in the head not to have noticed that all that beskar on the Mandalorian these days had come with a signet. Mudhorn, looked like. A—a clan, then, if Will remembered right. The Mandalorian had a clan, now, and a child.

Must have started it up himself. Wasn't that the way it usually worked, with his people? Must have found some other equally badass Mandalorian with an equally shiny helmet, so they could have smoking-hot kinky faceless sex and repopulate all of Mandalore. Wasn't that just fantastic.

Will let his eyes fall shut. The worst part of all wasn't thinking it; the worst part of all was discovering how his gut rolled when he did, how his throat tightened. The worst part of all was learning that he still _cared_ about it so much.

Because he shouldn't have. Of course he shouldn't have. It shouldn't have meant a thing to him. The Mandalorian had left him behind a long time ago, and surely hadn't once looked back—hadn't thought about him at all, probably. But Will had never managed to do the same, and here was the proof, and it burned almost too hot to bear.

The Mandalorian had always been better at that kind of thing than Will had.

"Why?" he made himself say aloud.

The Mandalorian was silent.

Will made himself look—raised his eyebrows, and tilted his head, and said it again: "Why? What does Tammaran Madari want with your child, Mando?"

"There's still an Imperial foothold in this sector," the Mandalorian said. "Madari's betting on them pulling themselves together and retaking it, and she wants to be on their good side when they do. She made a deal with Moff Gideon."

"A _moff_?" Will said, astounded. "An Imperial moff is after _your child_ , and you haven't killed him yet?"

"First try didn't take," the Mandalorian said.

"First try."

"Haven't tried again," the Mandalorian allowed. "Yet. I've been a little busy."

"Apparently," Will said.

The Mandalorian looked him up and down—deliberate, visible, tilting the helmet forward and then back again. "If I get you out of there," he said, "will you help me find the child?"

Will made a show of thinking it over. "And if I say no?"

"You think I'd leave you here in chains," the Mandalorian said slowly.

Will laughed. He couldn't help it.

The Mandalorian didn't. He didn't move at all. He only stood there and waited through it, and Will couldn't even begin to guess what the fuck he might be thinking.

"Even if I set you free," the Mandalorian said, "you'll still need to fight your way out. Might as well do it with help."

And of course he wasn't wrong. Will half wished he were; but he wasn't. The Mandalorian would be fighting his way out either way, and so would Will. They could be of some measurable use to each other. Just business.

It was all just business in the end, with the Mandalorian.

"All right," Will said aloud. "All right. Get me out of here, and we'll find this child of yours. Done."

And the Mandalorian drew that Amban rifle he'd always loved so well, and aimed, and fired; and half Will's chains disintegrated into thin air at once.

It was easy, after that.

Too easy. Deceptively, irritatingly easy.

It had always been like that, fighting alongside the Mandalorian. Even back when they'd hardly known each other at all, long before they'd started fucking, it had been like that. The rhythm of it was still there, despite everything, and Will fell into it all too readily, every piece of it come back to him as though it had never left: that sense he had for where the Mandalorian was, and how he would move next, what he would do; the attacks he favored, when the choice was his, and the maneuvers he fell back on in a corner, when pressed.

The Mandalorian had to kill the first two or three of Madari's guards himself. Will had no weapon—he'd have used those sparksteel chains, except they'd all been vaporized. But once he was able to get his hands on a pair of blasters, he evened out the score, moving ahead through the compound and catching the next batch of three entirely off guard.

And then—

Then it was easy.

They moved together without hesitation. They didn't speak; they didn't have to. A tilt of the Mandalorian's helmet, and Will knew where the Mandalorian wanted him, and went. He burst from cover, firing, and the Mandalorian worked around him, over him—or the Mandalorian went first, shooting bursts of roaring flame from that gadget on his wrist, and Will leaned out and caught anyone who tried to rush him with a blaster bolt to the head, the throat, an eye.

The blasters fit ill in his hands. He could work with them, right enough. But he had no love for them, graceless brutish things, without artistry.

So it was a pleasure indeed to discover, as he and the Mandalorian swept the rest of one long hallway for stragglers, that one of the dead had been carrying Will's own energy bow with her. Claimed it for herself, presumably, after it had been taken from him, and she must have been good enough with it to force the rest to accept the choice. Almost a shame, Will thought, looking down at her; and yet he couldn't quite convince himself to regret it, with his bow before him again at last.

He took it in his hands, turned it over and felt the weight of it and thumbed the controls, and the string blazed to life, a taut buzzing line of blue light. He grinned down at it, gripped the string and drew it and then looked up—and it was as if the years lifted off him, fell away from him, to find the Mandalorian there looking back at him; to grin wider, fiercer, at that shining helmet, knowing the Mandalorian was probably rolling his eyes under there. About to plunge back into the thick of it together, as soon as they rounded the corner, with too many enemies waiting for them, terrible odds, and hardly caring—because in the moment, it felt as though nothing could touch them, even if it wasn't true.

And for an instant, there was the same old edge of heat in it, too, flaring helplessly to life. Except there wasn't any good reason for it now, Will reminded himself, swallowing hard. He wasn't going to get to crowd the Mandalorian back against the hull of the _Razor Crest_ , after this was over, and shove his hands in under the edges of the armor. He wasn't going to get to unhitch that utility belt and let it fall, and then push the Mandalorian's thighs apart—

Which was just as well, because he didn't want to. That was over, and done with, and he'd leave it lying in the cold ashes where it belonged.

The Mandalorian had turned away to peer ahead, around the corner of the corridor. Someone appeared to have noticed all the blaster fire at last, the yelps and thumps—because a bolt zipped over the Mandalorian's head, and burst apart against the wall.

"You still remember how to use that thing, I hope," the Mandalorian said.

"Oh, I'm sure it'll come back to me," Will murmured.

He threw himself around the corner, already mid-draw, and twisted the string the way he'd practiced for so long, so that the bow-bolt splintered against the guide-groove as it formed, one sharp dart of light cracking away at a time as he loosed it. Four, in total, and they resulted in two choked-off shouts, one silent thud, and a sharp cry: three kills, and the fourth had struck an outstretched hand, burned a hole straight through and sent the blaster in it tumbling away.

He had to duck half a dozen shots in retaliation. But like this, it was easy; he was flying.

"You still remember how to use that thing," the Mandalorian agreed, from the mouth of the corridor, and Will grinned.

There were perhaps a dozen more, between them and the far end of the room. Short work, straightforward, and Will couldn't resist another trick shot or two as they went—it felt so damned good. To have his bow back in his hands, sure enough. And to use it, to prove he was still as skilled as he'd ever been. And—

And to have the Mandalorian see him do it.

He bit down on a wry little smile. Of all that remained that it seemed clear he could still depend on: his bow, and his own foolishness.

They came out into another hallway. Will had only the dimmest memory of being dragged along this way, or a way that had looked much like this; he couldn't begin to guess where they were. But the Mandalorian moved without hesitation, and Will moved with him.

Up a wide straight stair that led to the upper levels of Madari's war-fortress, and across a courtyard—a guard at each corner, but Will shot two with another split bow-bolt, the Mandalorian disintegrated a third, and the fourth ducked behind a pillar, shouting, and left them free to dart across the open space unimpeded.

Another room, larger, vaulted. A dozen, ready for them, and no sign of Madari; but the Mandalorian didn't seem to care. Will couldn't begin to guess what it was about the small round container on the table that seemed to have caught at him, but caught at him it had, and he rushed ahead. Will shouted at him, wordless, and drew and loosed as fast as he was able, cover fire—he couldn't pull quite as fast as a blaster, even at his best, but he could get close.

The Mandalorian closed with one, shocked them with darting bursts of blue light even as he hauled them round between him and half a dozen blaster bolts, to use them as a shield. Will fired past him to take out the two who meant to come at him from the other side, and then had to duck and roll his way into an alcove in the corner of the room to dodge the wave of return fire. He let himself wait there a moment, catching his breath, and then leaned out and took two more quick shots—because by then it was all that was needed, two piles of armor and three more guards groaning on the floor showing where the Mandalorian had worked his way systematically through the rest.

The Mandalorian let the last drop, already looking past them. Looking past them, and leaning in over the table, intent on that odd little container. He touched it, opened it, and William crossed the room toward him curiously and peered past his shoulder to see—

" _That_ is your kid."

The Mandalorian was quiet for a moment, just looking down at it. Tiny, green; huge dark eyes, huge long ears, pursed-up little mouth.

It had been busy blinking at the sudden light, as the container had opened up around it. And then it looked up at the Mandalorian and _cooed_ , and reached out with one stubby three-fingered hand.

And the Mandalorian reached back, and pressed his thumb into its little palm, and let out a slow breath.

"The child—the foundling—is ... under my care, yes," he said, without looking at Will.

Will looked at the kid, and then at the back of that shiny, shiny helmet, and then at the kid.

He'd thought—well. It didn't matter what he'd thought. He'd been wrong. The Mandalorian had a clan now, sure; but maybe this was it, right here, this weird green kid and its enormous eyes, and the Mandalorian, and no one else.

Maybe he'd only been half wrong. Maybe there _was_ some badass with a shiny helmet somewhere, waiting for the Mandalorian to come back with their foundling. But suddenly Will didn't think so, not anymore. The Mandalorian wouldn't have come here alone, if he had anybody else to ask—that he'd asked Will, as soon as he'd found him, was proof enough of that.

Something loosened in his chest, swept cool and sweet down his spine, set a soft light burning in his belly. He refused to call it relief, he decided; and he sure as shit wasn't going to call it hope.

"Does it have a name?" Will said.

The Mandalorian turned to him. "No, he doesn't," he said, and then hesitated. "Not yet."

"I suppose it's not as though you can confuse him for anyone else," Will allowed, and felt his mouth slant, and couldn't quite stop it.

The Mandalorian didn't turn away. Impossible as ever to guess where he might be looking, or what expression might be on his face. But Will's breath hitched unhelpfully in his chest anyway.

And then he heard a scrape. Boots on stone, he thought, and even as he thought it he was already moving.

The Mandalorian, facing him, could no doubt see the entryway past him, and would be in a better position to fire at their attackers; it would take Will long enough to turn that he could easily already find himself shot by the time he did.

So he didn't bother. Either the Mandalorian had his back, while they were helping each other through this place, or he didn't. There was nothing Will could do about it now.

He threw himself forward, instead. Toward the table, across it, and he caught up the child's cradle-shell even as he slid past it, and curled himself round it. A breath, that was all, and then he was across, rolling off the table's edge and landing harder than he'd wanted to on his knees, on the floor on the other side.

Some cover. But not enough. A handful of shouts, aimed not at the Mandalorian but at Will—Madari's guard had had the child's importance impressed upon them, clearly. Will twisted around, and he could no longer fire his bow fully, not with the child's cradle-shell in one arm; but he could still hold it, aim it, and force a bolt at a time from the guard-groove. Agonizingly slow by comparison, but it was what he had.

He took one by surprise: they'd meant to rush him, thinking he couldn't shoot at all, and the first full bolt caught them in the gut and tossed them back, where they crumpled to the floor. The Mandalorian had already taken out two—three, even as Will took count with a glance. But two more were aiming for Will, having spotted the child he clutched against him, and Will could only shoot one of them at a time.

He turned side-on, reflexive, minimizing the size of the target he presented, and kept the kid in the lee of him. He aimed at one, the bright blue bar of the bow-bolt shimmering to life, and fired; and then something sharp and searingly hot caught him in the shoulder. He bit down on a cry, caught the sound between his teeth, and forced his arm steady—he couldn't swap his bow to the other, not now. He couldn't let go of the child, and he couldn't trust the grasp of a wounded arm.

But the Mandalorian was already moving, and the second guard toppled in a spray of blue sparks, with a jittering half-choked shout.

That was the last of them, Will realized dimly. At least for now.

He let his arm drop. It didn't help; his shoulder burned, relentless, screaming, and he could already feel the itchy trickle of blood from the uneven edges of the half-cauterized wound. That was one nice thing about blaster bolts. Bled a lot less than anything left by your average blade edge. But unless they caught you clean, and straight on, they still bled a little.

The Mandalorian looked at him. Will looked back.

No point trying to hide what he'd been doing. He was still holding the child cradled in his other arm, still turned round so he was between the kid and the doorway, the downed guards. It seemed like a lot of effort to move now, and it wouldn't do him any good, when the Mandalorian had already seen well enough.

It was the sort of thing the Mandalorian had never hesitated to castigate him for, in the old days. _Stop trying to be a hero. Do your job._ Sharp, clipped words, always level and steady through that vocoder. Will had lost count of the number of times he'd heard them. And he'd tried, he had. He'd done well. But every now and then, his soft heart, his foolish head, had gotten the better of him, and the Mandalorian had never let him forget it.

Maybe it had been a warning, he thought distantly. Maybe the Mandalorian had already known then how things would end up between the two of them—had been trying to make it easier to bear.

Or maybe Will just wanted to believe as much. Because that would mean it had mattered to the Mandalorian, how it would happen and how Will would feel about it after, and Will was still as soft as ever, somewhere deep in the heart of himself.

But this—this was the Mandalorian's child. Surely if there was anyone the Mandalorian would be glad Will had taken a blaster shot for, it would be the child.

The Mandalorian took a step toward him.

"Garin," he said quietly.

"Don't say it," Will heard himself murmur. "Don't say it. I know. No heroes, right? No heroes."

The Mandalorian reached down, and took the child from him—and then caught him by his unwounded arm, and pulled him up. "Come on, Garin," he said. "Come on."

A shout—a straggler, charging up the stairs. The Mandalorian extended his free hand and fired, without looking away from Will; and then did look away, but only to glance around the room.

"That way," he said, and pulled, and together they went.

They hadn't been scrambling away from Madari's war-fortress for long, only a single ragged stone rise between them and half Madari's garrison, when Will looked up and saw a familiar silhouette against the sky.

"You're shitting me," he panted.

The Mandalorian seemed undented by this accusation, and only pulled him along harder.

"You're shitting me," Will said again, shaking his head. "You're _still_ flying that piece of space trash?"

"Be quiet," the Mandalorian said.

He'd left the bay ramp open—almost, Will thought, like he'd had some reason to believe maybe this day was going to end with an increasingly dire need for a quick getaway.

They scrambled up the ramp together. The Mandalorian vanished up the ladder to the cockpit; Will threw himself to one side, and spared a moment to pat the hull of the _Razor Crest_ fondly before he sucked in a quick breath, and drew his bow.

Not bad. His shoulder had settled into a hot steady throb—not comfortable, not by a long shot, but apparently it wasn't so bad he couldn't shoot straight, and that was all he needed to know. The _Razor Crest_ shifted under him, just as the first handful of Madari's soldiers came up the rise and started firing. Will returned the favor, and by the time the _Razor Crest_ had come up off the ground, he'd laid nearly a dozen of them out, and half of the rest had taken cover in a panic. Damned satisfying.

Just like old times, he couldn't help thinking. And, just as before, he knew full well that that shouldn't have made him so glad, that he should have been smarter than to let it—but he wasn't, and he never had been. It was good to be back with the Mandalorian again, deep down, for all that it ached too. And he couldn't keep from smiling, just a little, as he fired off one last farewell bolt and then slammed a fist down against the controls to seal up the bay door.

It closed. There was the rush of the wind, briefly deafening. And then they broke atmosphere, and everything went quiet.

Will closed his eyes, and breathed.

And then he opened them again, and looked down at his arm, and cursed. Still bleeding.

"Mando," he called, absent, already poking around the bay. Carbonite freezer, weapons locker, fresher. They'd always had their own packs, in the old days, and maintained their own supplies. But surely the Mandalorian would rather Will didn't bleed all over his ugly old ship. "Where do you keep the bacta packs on this junker?"

He leaned into the fresher, checking for any sort of collapsible hideaway he might have missed on first glance. And then he pushed himself up and out, trapping a groan between his teeth when he put a little too much pressure on his shoulder, and turned round, and almost swallowed his tongue.

The Mandalorian looked at him.

"Hold still," he said.

Will stared at him, baffled. He was holding the child—not in the cradle-shell anymore, just in his arms. He took a half-step closer, tilted the child in toward Will's shoulder; was he trying to scare it? Teach it a lesson? Or, for all Will knew, it drank blood—

"Mando," Will said, bewildered, leaning away.

"Hold still," the Mandalorian said again, and caught his elbow in one hand. "Will—don't move," and Will was so startled to hear him say it that he obeyed after all, freezing, unable to look away.

The child looked up at him, blinked those enormous eyes, and tilted his head. And then he reached out with one tiny hand and _concentrated_ , every line of his little face spelling out the effort it took; and Will's breath caught in his throat; and the throb in his shoulder was dulled, and went dim, and died.

That fast, that simple. The child sighed a little, and relaxed back into the Mandalorian's hands, and made a soft sweet noise. And the Mandalorian shushed him gently, and carried him over to the old cargo enclosure—filled with blankets now, Will saw, and cushioned haphazardly—and set him down.

Will stared, and reached absently for his shoulder. The hole in his leathers was still there, and so was the blood. But he swiped a thumb through it and pressed hard, looking for anything; bruising, an ache, the least little twinge.

Nothing. It was fine.

The Mandalorian had straightened up, and turned around, and was looking at him again.

"What was that?" Will said, hushed.

"I don't know," the Mandalorian said, equally quiet. "Sorcery, perhaps. I'm—looking for his kind. They may all be able to do it."

Will bit his lip. It didn't help, and after a moment he laughed, and rubbed a hand across his face. "Of course. How is it that you always seem to manage to end up in the middle of these kinds of messes?"

"Skill," the Mandalorian said, very evenly.

Will grinned. "Sure." And then he forced the grin away, and cleared his throat. "I realize our deal didn't cover this."

The Mandalorian went still.

"You giving me a ride off-planet," Will elaborated. "I agreed to help you, if you freed me. We made no arrangement for the rest."

The Mandalorian was silent. "Garin," he said at last, slowly.

"I wouldn't want you to think I mean to cheat you," Will said. "Or that I'm trying to cash in on—our prior association. You don't owe me anything, Mando. And I don't want you to be left owed, either."

"I understand," the Mandalorian said, very low.

"I can pay you," Will told him.

The Mandalorian's expressionless helmet was sometimes very eloquent. "Can you," he said.

Will hesitated.

(This was the part that would require care. Fancy footwork, close attention. But he could pull it off if he tried. He knew he could.)

"Help me get out of this sector," he amended, "and I can pull a job or two, and _then_ I can pay you."

Business. Just business.

It would take a little time. Of course it would. It had to, inevitably—and of course it was entirely possible that Will would owe the Mandalorian still more by the time those jobs were done, if he had required the use of the _Razor Crest_ to do them.

And in the meantime, well. Who knew what might happen? There was still an Imperial moff on the Mandalorian's trail, if he'd been telling the truth about that—and it wasn't the sort of thing that made a good lie. And Madari was in communication with that moff. She'd have a recording, no doubt, a holo-capture to prove the Mandalorian had taken back the child, that she hadn't been double-dealing or attempting to fool the moff; and Will would be on it, too. There was a target painted on his back, now.

The Mandalorian knew all those things just as well as Will did.

And a day ago, Will would have been bitterly certain none of it could possibly mean anything to him. But now—

It was worth a shot. He'd asked for Will's help, and set him free. Fought alongside him, readily, and—and shown him a thing that mattered, a vulnerability. _Had_ a vulnerability, a tiny green one with enormous eyes, which was the last thing Will would ever have imagined, all those long bitter years alone. And he'd brought the kid down to fix Will's shoulder, instead of leaving it to bleed.

So: it was worth a shot. And Will had always liked to take a good gamble, now and then.

The Mandalorian looked at him. "Fine," he said.

Will cleared his throat again. "All right, so—we have a deal, then. Now let's get out of here, shall we?" And then he tilted his head a little, heart pounding, and added, "You know, the way things are looking for you, you're lucky you're going to have me around to watch your back for a little while."

Brazen; foolish; sentimental. The kind of helpless wishful thinking the Mandalorian never would have indulged him in, before.

But this time, all the Mandalorian did was watch him quietly, for a moment. "Yes," he said at last. "I am."

He turned away, then, and climbed back up to the cockpit, quick and efficient. Will was left there gazing up after him, rueful, flushed; hopeful, for all the good it would do him. He laughed, and rubbed his mouth, and wondered how much further into the Mandalorian's debt he could get himself—how long he could make it take, to pay it all off.

Just to be sure they were even, that was all.


End file.
